Filmmaker Catarina Oliveira visited Project Hope in Nablus and gave us the gift of this beautiful documentary short about the organization and its work. Stay tuned for the shorter promotional version, coming soon!.

We’ve given ProjectHope.ps a makeover, though you may still notice our old logo floating around in a few photos. We’d love to hear what you think of our new digital home. Drop our webmaster a line at webmaster@projecthope.ps and let us know how we can improve!

Asra is a primary school teacher who speaks a billion languages and has lived all over the place. We talked with her about volunteer teaching with Project Hope in Spring 2011, what it was like to grow up a refugee herself, and what she sees for the future of Palestine.

When we arrived, the kids were on their best behavior, the older ones looking out for the little ones, with the awareness that they were representing Balata Camp.  The zoo is impressively large, with a wide variety of animals.  The kids debated which animal was the best – the lions?  The bears? The Zebras?  Those monkeys are pretty hilarious.

The zoo is spacious with many nice picnic areas where families were sitting together and enjoying home-made feasts of grape leaves and other delights.  The famed museum includes a taxidermy display of all the animals that died during the intifada, as well as a mix-mash of displays on natural history, botany, etymology, astronomy, as well as Palestinian cultural heritage.  The exhibits include detailed wall-text accompanied by beautifully painted verses of the Qur’an expounding upon the miracles of seeds, plants, bees and planets.  The museum and the zoo may not impress visitors used to different standards of quality, but together these spaces represent so perfectly the Palestinian spirit.  So much time and care has been spent in creating and maintaining these humble yet beautiful spaces, and so much dedication and hope can be found in the zoo’s ability to survive through invasions and intifada.

By the time we’d seen every animal at least three times, saw every exhibit in the museum, ridden all the rides, played on every piece of playground equipment, and eaten all our snacks, the zoo was getting ready to close.  Surely I thought the children would be tired and bored by then, but they really never wanted to leave.  With all the fun we had, though, we promised each other, and the monkeys, we’d be back.

The army still comes to the camp at night sometimes, and the Disability Resource Center has no shortage of people with physical and psychological traumas to treat.  The children still deal with issues of fear, aggression and anxiety, however, with the extreme violence of the 2^nd Intifada behind us, the pictures children draw today are different.  Today, children draw pictures of the ocean and rivers, flowers, mountains and trees.  The scenes of calm, clean and serene nature stand in vivid contrast to the daily surroundings of the camp.  After nearly two months of working with this group of kids from Balata, it seemed only natural to reward them with the one thing they talked about constantly – getting out and changing their scenery.  When I opened the option of a field trip to them, the first place they suggested was Jacob’s Well, a historic religious site about 200 meters away from the entrance of Balata camp.  I told them to think a bit bigger.  Someone suggested Wadi Badan, a local picnic spot with natural springs, pools and water parks.  Given the kids’ obsession with swimming and water (despite the fact there’s no place to swim anywhere near Balata camp) it seemed a good choice.  But, given age, gender and ability differences, I sensed some anxiety about a swim trip.  One of the girls came up with the idea of going to Qalqilya Zoo, which she said she heard was “heavenly,” adding that the monkeys there were reputedly hilarious, and that there was a great museum there, in addition to a playground of epic proportions.  The matter was settled. We were going to the zoo.

The first month of classes was adjustment. I’ve mentioned before that as a generally busy person I’ve never been so busy as I was here, and I think that still holds true for the first half of my teaching position. It was a combination of having so much to learn, having so many projects and ideas and potential ways to contribute, having a packed schedule, and working with an organization that has about 15 centers to juggle at once and as many volunteers with rotating schedules and varying levels of competence on all sides. Here’s an excerpt from January 21st, 2011:

Busy, so busy time compresses my head and a day of teaching is an adrenaline rush. Literally back to back meetings, classes, ad-hoc language lessons, sneaking in arabic study and lesson preparation, answering emails, all day, 6am to 8pm, go go go. I’ve never been so busy, which is saying quite a lot. The idea of traditional teaching, once a challenge in and of itself, now seems a cakewalk. How simple to communicate in your own language, in the same place, not everywhere in a city at once as I now am. In 10 minutes I teach a two hour long lesson to ESL college students, a demanding class, their english is good enough to get them in trouble. Then quickly across the entire city by foot and by taxi to Askar camp, where we teach with nothing, trying the wrangle some attention. Then video work, making a blog worth watching, building a critical mass of focus on the country. Justifying the work. Then a presentation, then, maybe, a chance to learn, reflect. Every minute’s full.

Some challenges were a result of different priorities and understandings. Project Hope is first and foremost a language center, which is what Palestine needs most and what they’re equipped to teach. I didn’t want to teach English, but I quickly learned that unless I had some organizational clout behind me and a pretty solid amount of time with each group, kids weren’t terribly interested in learning about making films. The kids in the refugee camps are balancing a crazy schedule of preparing for exams, taking exams, and resting from exams. The fact of the matter is kids want to run around and be kids and play football and wrestle each other when they’re not being subjected to a top-down education.

Things kept changing, changing, changing. My class in Askar started as an English class, an hour long. I shadowed the volunteer before me and witnessed the group of refugee kids devolve into a literally screaming mass before my eyes. The classroom setting was similar to this one:

The next month was spent building trust with them, getting them on board with the idea that if they wanted to learn something fun and creative, they’d have to work together to keep the class focused and the disruptive kids in check. We worked on art, photography, and English, and they never screamed or jumped on the desks with me like that first day. Sometimes 13 kids would come, sometimes 4. Then, after a very successful field trip, just as we were starting into film, things fell apart. It took them 45 minutes to do something my other film group had down in 15. I didn’t trust them with the cameras, so we took them away. Selma, my co-teacher, said they didn’t seem to be getting anything out of the film classes, and we might as well switch to English, and I agreed. When I told the kids that our attempts to do something fun and different had failed, and we would learn English from now on, they didn’t flinch for a second. A boisterous, obnoxious girl who suddenly appeared a few times ago simply said she wanted to do English anyway. I told her that I knew she wouldn’t behave or pay attention, I’d seen her previous behavior, she shrugged and said she’d be better next time, which is what she always said. The next time we went there were only two students there, and we decided to call it off.

In the meantime I was teaching English classes at every level of competence and working on independent film tutoring and projects. I was losing faith in the idea that cameras could be used for anything more than visual aids in learning other subjects, but at the same time I’d hear or learn about other projects that sounded wildly professional and successful, Cinema Jenin or Tomorrow’s Youth Organization. It was frustrating. Then I had the opportunity to teach a six-class film course at the Happy Childhood Center in Balata. It wasn’t ideal, as cramming as much material as possible into a two-week course wouldn’t give the students the autonomy and self-empowerment needed to keep their projects up after I left. But it was better than nothing, so I went into it full force. It turned out great. Of the group of 10-12 kids, three boys and one girl were really keen on the film projects, and two of the boys wanted to continue working together. We filmed around the camp in a number of fun exercises and made a few good first videos. Monsour and Nayef were the most motivated, they made the contact and scheduled this interview about a house that was demolished by Israeli soldiers:

Then they made this little piece on the day a prisoner was released and talked to him:

The girls took pictures and made a sildeshow of the difficulties children face in the camp, especially girls. We talked a lot about the challenges they had even finding girls to film because all of the spaces in the street are for boys:

The more involved I was in film, the less I sweated the details in the English classes, but they turned out pretty well as well, as I was getting more comfortable with my students, the material, and teaching in general. I tried to keep things focused on discussion and grammar, as the students here are generally quite advanced in terms of vocabulary, but never speak or speak timidly, so we did a lot of confidence building stuff. Those classes got to the point that I was well liked and respected by my students and they even threw me a big party with the director of education and an amazing plaque at the Islamic school, which was more than a little absurd.

Toward the end of things I felt a really good balance between my film interest and my ability to be useful as an English-first-language speaker. There are some things that shouldn’t be taught through translation, like editing, blogging, and computer skills. But at other times kids took the film stuff and ran with it, last week concluded another Balata three-week course that went great in every respect, the kids doing photo scavenger hunts, writing scripts, and producing scenes even though we only had a short time together.

They got to see how to take their videos and put them on YouTube, and after I added them as my friend on Facebook they got excited about the idea of showing me their future creations. Here’s their first little scene, about neighbors who are so cramped they start to argue when one accidentally throws trash out his window at the others:

On the documentary front we made a little scene illustrating the inadequate spaces kids have to play. They got one of their friends who is good at soccer to play in a narrow alley, and the narration talks about the challenges they face in the refugee camp. Then we decided to fool around and film some soccer commentary, which turned out pretty great:

Now that I’m done, part of me feels totally comfortable with this, with the fluctuating attendance, missed translations, and faulty equipment. Towards the end if I showed up to a class and my co-teacher couldn’t come I’d just plow on through in crappy Arabic and teach the courses by myself, and they’d turn out great. But when I think about what I want to do next here, and people say, ‘Oh there’s a job opportunity teaching English in X organization’, I say, “Hell no!” Looking back on these three months, I realize what an invaluable opportunity it’s been to volunteer with Project Hope. It gave me a perspective into the way Palestine really works culturally, politically, and logistically, and did so in a way that is locally empowering and locally led, which is really important to consider if your contribution is to be useful.

In this video, with B-roll shot by Project Hope’s own students, Program Advisor Sandy Marshall talks about one of Project Hope’s unique film making classes for girls.

‘The first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die.’ – Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram mountains, Pakistan.

I thought this was a very sweet story, but until I arrived in Palestine, I didnt realise how true it was in Middle Eastern culture. Two facts were brought quite quickly to my attention: I had finally found a nation that drinks more tea than the Brits, and I had (in my relatively wide experience of other nationalities and cultures) never met such a welcoming, warm and loyal people.

In my first week, along with not three cups of tea, but about 200, I have experienced everyday life here as much as a free international can in Palestine. It is sometimes easy to forget, when you walk the streets bustling with markets, food vendors, newsagents, supermarkets, that these people are living in an occupied territory. Outside the safety of the big city (note the irony in comparison to ‘Western’ countries), there are settler camps, military areas, checkpoints. Life is very different. Most people here have gutwrenchingly sad stories, but yet they are determined to keep going, keep living their lives, not complaining. This resillience coupled with a certain resignation to the way things are, is both inspirational and then heartbreaking at the same time.

Organisation here is a little challenged. You have to be willing to adapt, and quickly. I, in possession of my schedule, was all ready to teach my first class on the following day, when another volunteer came and said, ‘So your class today, I’m coming with you.’ Errrr, what? I quickly come to understand that ‘schedule’ is very loosely defined. But on the upside, if you have an idea for a class, whether it be creating a Spanish curriculum, coaching girls football or teaching a dance class, Project Hope is flexible enough to sort it out for you. Before you know it, you are in your bedroom, choreographing dance moves to Britney in the name of class preparation.

I had class in a zoo. No seriously. There is one zoo in Palestine, and even with that, I have to use the term ‘zoo’ quite lightly. We were given the guided tour of the zoo’s museum, which unfortunately carried the stuffed dead animals that used to live in the zoo before the siege of 2002, when they almost all died due to lack of food and medical attention.

I experienced first-hand an Arab bar, where the main difference between here and home was the choice of beverage. Same crowded, noisy atmosphere, same men shouting at the football on TV, but instead of a pint of beer, they were drinking pink fruit smoothies.

I have swum in the dead sea, been on an accidental pilgrimage to the tomb of John the Baptist, been to the mountain where Satan was said to have tempted Jesus, had a picnic of Arabic bread and hummus (what else?) in the clouds, and attended a Thai boxing class. I have also met people here who I already know, in a week, will be friends for life. There is a certain wavelength people need to be on to want to come here and try and show solidarity with the Palestinian people. And it just means you meet some very like-minded, and very, for lack of a better word, awesome people.

Coupled with all these incredible and exciting things, is a darker and more sinister side to this baptism of fire. During our trip to the Dead Sea, we witnessed first-hand the daily humiliation Palestinians have to face as we were stopped at a checkpoint. As we had been instructed, we all got out our passports, and smiled sweetly at the IDF soldier with more fire power on him than a small nation’s armed forces could need. As did our Palestinian friend. We were trying to get through to a beach that this same friend had visited not one month before. But today, the IDF had changed the rules — we could all go as internationals, but the Palestinian? Nope. He could not travel somewhere within his own country. And he just took back his identification and said thank you. Later I asked him why he didn’t resist or argue, and his response was simple, yet one of the saddest things I have heard here. ‘There is no point,’ he said. If he makes a fuss, the IDF will just make life miserable for him. The abuse of power is absolute. This resignation to the way things are was the hardest thing to learn in my first week.

I will end this, however, with one of my favourite quotes, being British and all. It goes, “Where there is tea, there is hope.”